The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

President Trump has now achieved what every aspiring strongman dreams of: his own face on government-issued money while he’s still in office. Because when you’re busy hollowing out democratic norms, why not speedrun the whole Dear Leader starter pack? NPR notes he’s the first living president to pull this stunt, which is a nice, neutral way of saying, "We usually wait until presidents are done ruling — or at least done breathing — before turning the Treasury into their personal fan club."

At the same time, he’s “reshaping Washington in his image” and leaning hard into influencing the midterms, which is a polite euphemism for rigging the board before anyone gets to play. Consolidate power, slap your face on the money, then work the elections from the bully pulpit — it’s less ‘representative democracy’ and more ‘limited-time authoritarianism beta test.’ But sure, it’s just another week in politics, not the slow-motion branding of the capital — and the country — as a subsidiary of Trump, Inc.

US foreign policy used to be based on things like treaties, principles, and occasionally even facts. Now it’s based on whether Donald Trump feels emotionally supported by the British prime minister. After the UK declined to join his excellent, totally‑legal war on Iran, Trump is “re‑evaluating” the long-standing US recognition of British rule over the Falklands, because nothing says "responsible superpower" like turning a 200-year sovereignty dispute into a spite-driven customer service complaint.

Argentina’s libertarian cosplay president Javier Milei, who treats Trump like a cross between Hayek and a QVC host, is thrilled. He’s on TV telling Argentines that "winds of change" are blowing because the US president is mad at Keir Starmer and thinks the Falklands are "a long way away"—which, geographically, is about as accurate as his inauguration crowd size. The actual Falkland Islanders, who voted almost unanimously to stay British, are once again learning that in Trump’s America, self-determination matters right up until it conflicts with his need for revenge content.

So a decades-old alliance, a prior shooting war, and the democratic wishes of a remote island population are all being tossed into the blender because Trump wants to punish the UK for not signing up for his last foreign policy disaster. The "Special Relationship" has officially been downgraded to "Did you clap loud enough for Dear Leader?" diplomacy.

Donald Trump, the man who ran on ending forever wars, has decided the best midterm strategy is to start a reckless war of choice with Iran, kill civilians at a wedding, spike gas prices, jack up borrowing costs, and then act confused when voters notice their mortgages suddenly look like a payday loan. Having learned nothing from the last time “Mission Accomplished” went well, he’s now busy turning the Middle East into a live‑fire campaign ad for the Democrats.

Not satisfied with one disaster, he’s also picked a fight with the geopolitical menace known as Canada, slapping on tariffs that triggered a dollar‑for‑dollar retaliation aimed squarely at Republican‑leaning farm states like Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio. So the party of business is now the party of ‘we destroyed your export market so Trump could rename Lake Ontario to Lake America and Apple and Google could dutifully lick the boot in their map apps.’

Back home, Trump has discovered yet another 80/20 issue and sprinted to the 20. Data centers are wildly unpopular across the spectrum, so naturally he logged on to Truth Social to inform Americans that if they don’t want one sucking up their water and power next door, they must want to be “backwards and poor.” Throw in his obsession with demolishing the East Wing for a ballroom and stamping his signature on the dollar, and you get a president whose top legislative priority is turning the federal government into a merch table at Mar‑a‑Lago.

The cherry on this authoritarian sundae: he keeps endorsing walking ethics violations like Ken Paxton, then shrugs at the prospect of losing Congress because he’s already figured out that subpoenas are just fancy stationery when you’ve got a compliant Supreme Court and zero respect for checks and balances. When you believe you can ignore oversight, launch vanity wars, and cash out the presidency as a branding exercise, who needs midterms? The voters are just background noise to the main project: ruling, not governing.

The Trump administration has discovered a bold new way to ignore the Constitution: build a nationwide list of who it thinks is a citizen and then gently "encourage" states to use it to decide who gets a ballot. The U.S. has literally never attempted a comprehensive list of American citizens, because states run elections and maintain voter rolls. Trump, however, signed a March 31 executive order telling USCIS and Social Security to crank out "State Citizenship Lists" and ship them to governors at least 60 days before every federal election. The lists will be based on famously error-riddled federal data, but don't worry, what’s a little mass disenfranchisement between branches of government?

Originally, the administration planned to launch a public portal with these lists on Sept. 4, right on the 60-day mark before the midterms. After getting dragged into multiple lawsuits, DOJ now says it will just spring the portal on everyone with 48-hours notice, like a surprise party but for voting rights. The Supreme Court helpfully stayed a lower court injunction in 23 states and D.C., clearing the way for this federal voter surveillance wishlist to move forward. Meanwhile, Trump's order instructs the attorney general to prioritize prosecuting state and local officials who issue federal ballots to anyone the feds deem ineligible — a built-in intimidation mechanism so states feel "strongly encouraged" to obey the bad data.

Civil rights and privacy groups are understandably thrilled. The Electronic Privacy Information Center and individual voters are begging a federal judge to stop DHS and USCIS from building and publishing this thing at all. Protect Democracy’s Jules Torti notes that the lists are likely to be wildly inaccurate, which is a polite way of saying people are going to get kicked off the rolls because Trump wants a talking point about "election integrity." The administration calls it verification; the rest of us call it a federally managed pretext for purging voters and centralizing control of elections in the hands of the guy who still can’t accept losing the last one.

The Trump administration is now openly asking the Supreme Court to bless its plan to turn the U.S. Postal Service into a voter-suppression franchise. After a federal judge in Boston slapped a temporary restraining order on the scheme, Trump’s lawyers sprinted to SCOTUS, begging the justices to let USPS refuse to deliver ballots from states that don’t hand over detailed voter lists and slap special barcodes on envelopes. Because when you can’t win voters, you can always try to lose their ballots.

For the moment, the judge’s order means mail voting for the midterms is supposed to function normally, which is adorable given that USPS has apparently cobbled together an untested online portal to vacuum up voter data and a verification process that a whistleblower says could prevent people from getting ballots on time—or at all. Trump claims this is all to stop hordes of noncitizens from voting, a problem that studies show is rarer than a Trump staffer with job security. The challengers call it illegal election meddling; the administration calls it "regulating mail." Tomato, fascist tomato.

Election experts say it’s too late to jam this half-baked surveillance-and-rejection system into a live election without chaos, which is of course the selling point. North Carolina starts mailing absentee ballots basically now, while the White House is trying to rewrite the rules of the game mid-deal and have the Supreme Court cut the brake lines. It’s not subtle: the president is trying to weaponize the post office to decide which Americans are allowed to vote, and he’d like the highest court in the land to co-sign the sabotage.